Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1887-02-22
AT DEATHS DOOR.
Sayings OF Noted Persons Who were Con-
scious of Their Approaching End.

| Sayings OF Noted Persons Who We're Con-
scious of Their Approaching End.
al am dying at the top" said Walter
Scott, conscious that his brilliant brain
was softening. Some wits have begun
to die at the lower extremities. Lord
Chesterfeld's brain did not share in
the decay of his body. He had arrived
at such stage of decrepitude as to be
unable to bear the rapid motion of
carriage. When taking an airing, he
had TO be driven at n snairs race. al
am now going to the rehearsal of my
funeral, said the wit one day, as about
to enter his carriage. Fontenelle, an
| aged Frenchman, had lost his memory,
but his wit was so unimpaired that he
made witticisms on his inlirmities. al
am about TO decamp,n said he TO
friend, who asked after his health.
"Some faculties have left me, and
have sent my baggage on before.
When near one hundred years of age,
he met n lady almost as old. "Mon-
sicur,n said she, 81 believe Death has
forgotten us. "Hush, madamer re-
piled the wit "Don't talk so loud, or
you may arouse his attention.
The mother of Francis ]. Of France,
Louisa of Savoy, died through pride
and superstition. Her pride brooked
no contradiction. When the Constable
Bourbon declined the hand she offered
him, she conliscated his estates. While
sick with fever, she thought she saw
a comet, and exclaimed; "IIai there
is an omen which appears not to per.
sons of low degree. God sends for us
great. Shut the windows; it announces
my death. | must prepare" In vain
the physician assured her that she was
not in dying state. She insisted that
she was; chad not the comet warned
her?" In three days she died.
Some persons have thought them
selves engaged in the business of life
when life itself was departing. ''But
it is dark; the boys may 60" were the
last words of DIR. Adam, the rector of
tie Edinburgh High School. Gentle
men of the jury. will you now consider
you verdict" said the dying Lord Ten
terden.
woman who had been n notorious
scandal-monger repeated, before she
died, every word she had heard against
anybody. In health her scandals had
been rctailed in mysterious tones, but
while dying she became noisy, and
shouted out her malice.
There have been cases known where
persons, who should have lived, were
put to death by their friends telling
them that they could not get we'll A
Scotch clergyman, on his way to visit
a poor sick woman, met the parish sur
geon, and inquired after the patient.
"The room is full of friends, who
tell her she cant last long, replied
the doctor. ~ make no doubt she will
not, for she is sinking, because she
thinks she is dying. Yet see no rea-
son why she should die, except the
talk of her friends, and | couldn't get
one of them to leave the room"
The clergyman entered the room,
and, his authority being respected,
soon cleared it of all in it. save one
person. He then told the woman what
the surgeon had said, that instead Of
dying, She would get we'll. Starting
up in bed. she exclaimed, with en-
ergy:
"Whatl Am | not dyingp Shan't
die? Then, thank the Lord, shan't
die''
She recovered, and thanked the cler-
gyman for clearing the room of 'the
birds of ill-omen. " Youths C0mDdn-
lou